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Perhaps there is no greater test of a man's regularity and easiness of conscience than his readiness to face the postman. Blessed is he who is made happy by the sound of a rat-tat! The good are eager for it but the naughty tremble at the sound thereof.

William Makepeace Thackeray

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William Makepeace Thackeray
Age: 52 †
Born: 1811
Born: July 18
Died: 1863
Died: December 24
Novelist
Prosaist
Writer
Calcutta
William Makepeace Thackeray
George Fitz-Boodle
Face
Rats
Easiness
Faces
Test
Postman
Happy
Tests
Thereof
Sound
Letters
Regularity
Made
Blessed
Tremble
Good
Conscience
Naughty
Men
Perhaps
Readiness
Greater
Eager

More quotes by William Makepeace Thackeray

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A man is seldom more manly than when he is what you call unmanned,--the source of his emotion is championship, pity, and courage the instinctive desire to cherish those who are innocent and unhappy, and defend those who are tender and weak.
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To our betters eve can reconcile ourselves, if you please--respecting them sincerely, laughing at their jokes, making allowance for their stupidities, meekly suffering their insolence but we can't pardon our equals going beyond us.
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Remember, it's as easy to marry a rich woman as a poor woman.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Life is a mirror: if you frown at it, it frowns back if you smile, it returns the greeting.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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No particular motive for living, except the custom and habit of it.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Every man ought to be in love a few times in his life, and to have a smart attack of the fever. You are better for it when it is over: the better for your misfortune, if you endure it with a manly heart how much the better for success, if you win it and a good wife into the bargain!
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Our great thoughts, our great affections, the truths of our life, never leave us. Surely they can not separate from our consciousness, shall follow it whithersoever that shall go, and are of their nature divine and immortal.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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There is no good in living in a society where you are merely the equal of everybody else. The true pleasure of life is to live with your inferiors.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Pray God, keep us simple.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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When one fib becomes due as it were, you must forge another to take up the old acceptance and so the stock of your lies in circulation inevitably multiplies, and the danger of detection increases every day.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Taste is something quite different from fashion, superior to fashion.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Next to the very young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Malice is of the boomerang character, and is apt to turn upon the projector.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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It is from the level of calamities, not that of every-day life, that we learn impressive and useful lessons.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Diffidence is a sort of false modesty.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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The affection of young ladies is of as rapid growth as Jack's beanstalk, and reaches up to the sky in a night.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?
William Makepeace Thackeray
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If success is rare and slow, everybody knows how quick and easy ruin is.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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Ho, pretty page, with the dimpled chin That never has known the barber's shear, All your wish is woman to win, This is the way that boys begin. Wait till you come to Forty Year.
William Makepeace Thackeray
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The unambitious sluggard pretends that the eminence is not worth attaining, declines altogether the struggle, and calls himself a philosopher. I say he is a poor-spirited coward.
William Makepeace Thackeray